In 1993, in the midst of their world tour and just two years after their masterpiece “Achtung Baby”, U2 released their “Zooropa” album. They also recorded the record in portable studios, sometimes before and after their performances. You can feel the trembling in the songs, the speed, the drafts, the ability to let go, the desire to sing differently.
“Zooropa” is like a blended family, but a well-functioning blended family. The songs don’t fit together well in their sequencing, the transitions are not harmonious, and yet each song is a little treasure in itself. The title track is an attempt to bring the band’s “Zoo TV” (from “Achtung Baby”) and “Zooropa” concept to a common denominator within six minutes: in the early 1990s, new U2 music finally emerged under the impression of the media age. Satire in general, the garishly colored reporting on the first Gulf War, the Clash of the Cultures, the war in Yugoslavia, Islamist hate speech against Salman Rushdie, all of this kept Bono and the band busy, and it should somehow flow into the music.
Luckily, the internet wasn’t widespread yet. It’s hard to imagine what U2 would have done with this medium on their stage. The viewers of the “Zooropa” spectacle had to be satisfied with live telephone and video connections, including to the antechamber of the White House and to the ISS; Bono didn’t want to leave Berlin entirely, after all the nostalgic, sad Trabbis were still hanging from the huge ceiling as stage spotlights.
So the title track was quite a burden, a strong concept hovering over this album. How should it sound? Its dynamics are reminiscent of Bowie’s “Station To Station”: a transmitter-like intro, radio messages, radio waves, German language, slowness. Then, in the second half of the song, an increased, rider-like tempo stands for a changed world order and the positive development of the protagonist.
As soon as you have digested the opener, U2 do a 180 degree turn with song two. In “Babyface” they no longer devote themselves to technical communication between all people, but to the conversation between just two people, the topic of love. “Coming home late at night / To turn you on / Checking out every frame / I’ve got slow motion on my side”. The chime-carried, truly slow-motion song for supermodel Christy Turlington is perhaps her most beautiful love song – and the most underrated, having only been performed live a handful of times.
“Numb” continues the theme of media overkill. The Edge has so much to say in terms of commandments, do’s and don’ts, parroting suggestive TV messages that he has to switch to chanting because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get through so much text. His monotonous murmuring and Bono’s heretical falsetto backing vocals in the chorus are a little too silly to be satire anymore. As indicated above, releasing the song as a pre-video single and thus unsettling the buyers is a bold move.
“Stay” is the ultimate hangover track
“Numb” is followed by the disco track “Lemon”, at seven minutes the longest U2 song to date and, after the blues of “Rattle And Hum”, their second genre style exercise; and that in turn is followed by her best song ever: “Stay (Far Away, So Close!)”. It remains incomprehensible why “Stay” has not gone down in history: as a Berlin song, as a Berlin song of the nineties, as a Berlin party song of the nineties. It’s the ultimate hangover tune, despite being as slow as a ballad. The drums, offset from the guitar, slosh around like the brains of a hangover headache. “Red lights, gray morning /You stumble out of a hole in the ground /A vampire or a victim /It depends on who’s around”.
In the city of awakening 20 years ago, everything seemed possible in Berlin. And it didn’t matter how you looked in the morning afterwards. It was only another twelve hours until the next night. In the accompanying clip, Bono climbs the Victory Column; it is supposed to show the singer at the peak of his potency.
The album closes with a song written for and sung by Johnny Cash, “The Wanderer”. Which other band dares to have the final piece of a record, the rounding off feeling of a song collection, ended by a strange voice? Today, Cash’s engagement would seem like a running gag: the timbre of the old, now deceased singer echoes through every H&M dressing room, every teenager likes and knows Cash’s versions of “Hurt” or “One” without knowing the originals – let alone because older albums by Cash.
The Wanderer was written before Johnny Cash’s musical renaissance, before his Rick Rubin-produced albums. Back then, U2 just wanted to work with one of their role models, Dylan and Willie Nelson had already had their breakfast. Nevertheless, they underscored the cash result with electronic sounds without hurting the country star.
“Zooropa” has unfortunately fallen into oblivion in the meantime. Except for “Stay”, U2 would not regularly perform any song from the record live from 1993 to the present day.
In the summer thirty years ago, after “Zooropa” was out, the band had shot themselves empty. It would take four years until the next record, “Pop”. “Pop” was intended to be similarly experimental. But one soon became painfully aware that the song material wasn’t quite as good and bulky anymore. And the renewed satirical approach, this time attacking consumption in general, was a little too half-hearted. “Zooropa” remains one of their last major albums.